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alsosmelled good, apparently. After he died men fought over his clothes. At least, so Plutarch says. Newell is fastidious and definite about his person, but not vain; the cleanest human being Hugh’s ever known.
    “Anyway. He’s happy now.” Newell knocks the wood panel behind them.
    Hugh ought to have said that. He ought to agree with it. His teeth are bothering him; his tongue searches for a lodged scrap of wagyu beef.
    At last, speeches over, they proceed to Principal Pink’s palace. The streets are dark, heading into the older, richer neighbourhood along the riverbank. Cold late October wind cuts the evening air and from time to time Hugh catches a gold leaf falling from the maples overhead. It’s quiet here, empty, Monday night.
    He ought to be with Mimi at the hospice. Turn left at this corner.… But he trudges straight along anyway, beside or behind Newell and Burton.
    Mincing on subtly heeled boots, zipped up tight in an unbecoming black leather jacket (which—here’s one consolation—is too ill-chosen to have been a gift from Newell), Burton is elevated, excited to be the Master of the Class. His old conceited self, only more so. Burton sucks up intimacy. It’s not enough for him to walk with his arm through Newell’s, he has to be in on every moment of conversation, vitally involved, or else he pouts and pulls away—but he pouts without letting go that arm, so Newell still has to soothe him. All the walks with Burton Hugh can remember. When they were boys at drama camp, Burton the Artist in Residence. Even then. Burton in those days gleaming, hard-bodied, like a shining tropical turtle, knowing and talented and bold, on his way up. Before the Public, and the thing at Yale.
    “ The history of the world, my sweet, oh, Mr. Todd, ooh, Mr. Todd ,” Burton carols, crack-tenored, zimming along the leaf-strewn sidewalk, “is who gets eaten, and who gets to eat!” He skips. “Won’t we have a magnificent month,” he says, clasping Newell’s arm tighter as they turn up the walk of a large Victorian house.
    Pink’s place: peach paint, picked out in peony, and yellow gingerbread.
    Hugh stays out on the veranda for a few minutes, hoping his temper will cool down. It’s hard not to think that Burton ought to be killed. But of course that’s not a useful thought, so you stop yourself. Hugh stops.

9. I’VE TOLD EVERY LITTLE STAR
    Jason goes to answer the doorbell, bowl of spaghetti in hand. Ivy guesses he doesn’t dare put it down or his mother will clean it away. He looks like he never gets enough to eat.
    A boy he calls Orion comes back with him. Orion is courteous, explains himself: sent to escort Ivy to the drama party. He must be one of them . Touchingly good-looking, in an unfinished, over-exposed way. Flax-blond hair cut over his ears to odd effect. A princeling.
    “Orion, like the constellation?” He nods, politely patient, and Ivy is sorry she asked. She might have joked about his belt; that would have been worse.
    All the boys are tall these days, she feels like a pigeon walking among them. But having recently realized, at the age of forty-six, that she looks like Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, she decides to feel good about that. A jewelled pigeon on a mild strut.
    Jason tells his mother, “We’re supposed to help at Pink’s for work experience.”
    “Oh.” Ann looks put out. “I guess. I’ll pick you up at nine.”
    “Might be later. Elle’s going too.”
    “You have a bio quiz tomorrow.”
    “Ten.”
    Ivy finds this telegraph bargaining fascinating: the longest stretch of words she has yet heard them exchange. Ann concedes. Her head bows over her spaghetti. She twines two strands on her fork, threading round, round, round, without lifting it to her mouth.
    Jason flies up the stairs. Ivy follows, needing a better coat. Not for warmth, for armour. Ansel Burton doesn’t like her, and besides, he’s crazy, maybe even psychotic. Newell is kind, but only an acquaintance. Not a